August 18, 2010

Can't confirm anything on possible sale

I got a hold of four people who could have information on the sale today, and none of them offered anything in regards to the Forbes Report that the Stars could be sold soon with a sale price of between $275 million and $300 million.

Two gave clean no comments, and a couple of others said they were a little blindsided by the report and asked what I knew about it, so there still is an air at least that this could be another false alarm.

When The Hockey News reported earlier that Bill Gallacher had agreed to buy the team for $225 million, there were several immediate comments that this was not true and that the price was too low. On this one, nobody is stepping up right now to shoot it down. That could mean that the rumor has some truth behind it or it could mean that the people who could shoot it down don't want to. They like having it out there that the Stars are worth that much.

One of the questions with the Rangers was how much property was involved in the sale. When the parking lots were tossed in, that created a different price structure and created problems with the lenders, so they were taken out. The Stars have some ownership in the Dr Pepper StarCenters as part of Hicks Sports Group, but the Hicks family owns the Cedar Park Stars as a separate entity. Are those properties involved? These things are tricky, so price is often confusing.

I did take out of my conversations that there are not plans to announce this Thursday or, from what I could tell, any time really soon. There was too much uncertainty from the people I talked to for this to be close to being done.

So we'll see. I know all of you would like to get this done as quickly as possible, and I'm sure everyone involved with the sale would like to see the same thing. I will say that if indeed there is an offer in this price range, the chances of this sale getting done quickly go way up.